


The Violet Hour

by florencedrunk



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Artist Steve Rogers, Dead Peggy Carter, Dream Sharing, M/M, Reincarnation, War Veteran Bucky Barnes, past Steve Rogers/Peggy Carter - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-05 04:12:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11570082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florencedrunk/pseuds/florencedrunk
Summary: Once upon a time, in a kingdom by the sea, lived a Prince with paper-thin skin and eyes of melting ice. He had a fire burning in his chest, and the only thought in his mind was to love and to be loved by a Soldier with scars all over his body as well as his soul.“Is it a sunset or a dawn?”“Depends. What do you think it is?”“What’s the answer that makes me look optimistic?”“I don’t know. It depends.”





	The Violet Hour

**Author's Note:**

  * For [litra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/litra/gifts).



From this far, the city doesn't look that bad, Bucky thinks. It looks nothing like a city, actually. More like a sea of lights, swelling as the wind blows through the skyscrapers while the storm rages above. It's quiet, too. No screaming, no crying, no noise but the thunder and the rain hitting the ground. It's like lying on a beach at night when everything is dark, and the world could end without anyone noticing.

He had a dream like that, once: the moon was up in the sky, big and silvery, and its light illuminated the water as it reached for the sand, over and over again, only to retract as soon as it touched it. But each wave grew stronger than the previous, and each time the water crawled closer to Bucky. He didn't realise it, at first, too engrossed as he was with the starry sky. But then, the water reached his toes and his feet and his legs. He couldn't move — no, it was more like he didn't want to move, as if there was nothing that would please him more than sitting there, waiting. And he did wait, unable to talk, to move, to do anything. Soon, he tasted the salt in his mouth and felt the cold in his lungs.

That's only one of many nightmares. With his eyes closed, Bucky has seen forests of bones and meadows of red sand, colourful cities of blown glass and churches buried deep under the ocean. He's seen gardens turning into inescapable mazes, and felt hands rising from the ground to grasp his ankles; he's seen boiling rain pouring down from clouds of diamonds, and stone become dust and be carried away by the wind.

He has long given up on his dreams, in more than one sense, but at least he's learned to tell them apart from reality. He knows he's dreaming right now, for example. He knows that the roof he's standing on and the sea of lights before him exist only in a corner of his mind, and that, as soon as he walks to the edge of the buildings, the void will call for him like a siren luring a sailor to his death. He knows that none of this is real, and that it won't be long until he wakes up in his bed screaming. He'll curl up on the mattress, hugging his legs, trying to remember how to breathe, and then he'll forget everything he's seen. He knows all of this, but it doesn't make jumping any easier.

But before he knows it, he's falling. He's falling off the building and into the asphalt and past the world of the city of lights. He falls from a light blue sky and into a dark green ocean, and emerges to see a castle. Not the fairytale kind of castle, with high towers and spiralling columns made of silver and gold, but more the kind Bucky would expect his own mind to produce, all hard stone and narrow corridors and rooms that are way too big and cold. A dream within a dream, then. This is new.

He walks and walks — through corridors, up and down stairs, in and out of doors that lead to different rooms every time he walks past them — but he can't seem to find anything. There's not an item of furniture in the entire place, not a person, not even a ghost or an animal. The castle is completely empty. But, then, where is this noise coming from?

It sounds like a ticking clock, echoing through the castle, but seemingly coming from nowhere. It has to come from somewhere, though, right? Maybe not. This is a dream, after all. Bucky only has to wait for it to turn into a nightmare, for the water to rise and drown him, for the stone to crumble and fall down onto his head. He only has to wait. And wait he does: in the way the time passes while you're asleep, the sun plummets below the ocean, and the moon rises in its place. And then it's day again, and then night, and then day once more. Time passes, and the clock keeps ticking.

Tock-tick, tock-tick, tock-tick.

It's ticking backwards, Bucky realises. The clock is ticking backwards, as if time was rewinding. The dawns are sunsets, and the sunsets are dawns. The stone is healing, cracks disappearing from the always clearer some, and the waves are pushing away from the rocks around the castle, instead of crushing against them.

Tock-tick, tock-tick, tock-tick.

Sometimes, the sound gets louder, and Bucky thinks he's getting closer. But as he turns around a corridor, or enters a room, the ticking almost disappears, as if it had moved. It's still there, but it's far, far way.

Tock-tick, tock-tick, tock-tick.

There's a door that wasn't there before. It's made of shiny, white marble, and its surface is carved to make it look like the bark of a tree. When Bucky touches it, he feels warmth against his skin, and the massive door swings open, revealing a staircase leading downwards.

Tock-tick, tock-tick, tock-tick.

The room he finds is shaped like a dome, and lit by torches burning with white flames. It's empty, just like the rest of the castle, except for something at the centre of it that Bucky initially mistakes for a bed. But it isn't a bed. Looking closer, it's obvious that what he thought were delicate silk sheets are actually made of the same white marble as the door which led him here. On the mattress lies a bright red rose.

As he looks at it, something moves in Bucky's chest, like a rope tightening around his bowels, like lead filling his lungs, like a metal hand squeezing his heart. He knows he's been here before — not in his dreams, but not in reality, either.

He doesn't realise he's crying until he wakes up in his bed.

 

* * *

 

_Once upon a time, in a kingdom by the sea, lived a Prince with paper-thin skin and eyes of melting ice. He had a fire burning in his chest, and the only thought in his mind was to love and to be loved by a Soldier with scars all over his body as well as his soul._

 

* * *

 

Steve found an old book, once. It had a weird title and a battered cover. On yellow paper, in thin black letters, the ink told the story of the first humans. It said they were born with four arms and four legs and a head with two faces, and that they were so powerful even the gods feared them. It was Zeus himself who sent a rain of lightning down on Earth, striking the humans and splitting them into the form they have today. And today, still, humans roam the Earth alone, half of what they once were, longing to be whole again.

Even as a child, the idea of soulmates fascinated Steve. It was somehow reassuring to think that there was a perfectly crafted partner for everyone, that everyone had someone they belonged with and to. What he didn't like was the implication that every human is just one half of a whole, condemned to suffer unless they find the one person in the entire universe who completes them.

When he met Peggy, it became clear how unimportant all that stuff was. He knew she was the one. He knew it in his heart and felt it in his bones. Maybe they shared a soul, or were tied together by red strings — he didn't care. The only thing that mattered was that they had found each other, that they were together, and that they would have always been. But then, he lost her, and he found it hard to believe that a piece of his soul hadn't died as well.

That's when he understood why some people believe in Fate: they need to, it keeps them sane, it maintains an illusion of order. Something goes wrong, and they say it was written in the stars. Someone dies, and they tell themselves there's no other way it could have gone. In order to find peace, these people strip themselves of their agency, give up their power upon themselves to some higher force they are not even sure exists. But, at least, they can sleep at night.

Steve tried to do that, for a while. He tried to blame something else, something invisible and untouchable. But that's not how it works, not how _he_ works. He was given a new life — she gave him a new life — but when it was his turn to save hers, he failed. That was on him and him alone. Not fate, not destiny. Him.

"You start running, they'll never let you stop," he'd told Peggy a long time ago, while their car moved through Brooklyn.

But he couldn't stand up, this time. Not against death. He couldn't push back, he could never expect a different answer, or a different outcome. There was no way to change what had happened, but there was no way he could accept it, either. So, he ran. But you can't run forever, not from yourself. Not from your nightmares. Not from your dreams.

Tonight, there a painting in front of him and a brush in his hand.

"It's very beautiful," someone says. It's a man's voice, but Steve doesn't turn around to face him, keeping his eyes fixed on the canvas.

"I hate it," Steve says. "It's empty."

"It's pretty."

Steve snorts. "The Mona Lisa isn't _pretty_ " he says. "And neither is The Last Supper. And the Guernica— the Guernica is not pretty."

"I have no idea what that last one is."

Steve laughs. "How many paintings do you think exist like this one?"

"What do you mean?"

"How many times has someone stood where I'm standing, painting the same landscape I've painted?"

"I don't know. Hundreds? Thousands?"

"Then why should I even bother?"

"Because only you have your eyes. Only you see things how you see them."

"That's lame."

"It's the truth, though."

Steve steps back and takes a good look at his work. The bottom half of the canvas is occupied by a dark ocean, and the blue gets lighter and lighter as his eyes go up, seamlessly becoming the night sky. Hundreds of white dots are scattered here and there, thicker around the big, white circle that is the moon.

He turns around, and a "Thank you" dies in his throat when he sees that the stranger is gone.

 

* * *

 

_Since they were children, the Prince and the Soldier loved each other with a love that was more than love — a love envied by the elders and the wise, by the angels in Heaven and the demons dwelling down in the bowels of the Earth. But the Prince was as frail as he was fierce, and no matter how strong the Soldier was, this was a battle he could never win._

 

* * *

 

War is unforgiving, which is good, because forgiveness is the last thing Bucky wants. Not that he really knows what he wants. If you asked him, he'd probably lie.

"Peace," he would say. "I want peace."

That couldn't be further from the truth. Peace is immobile. It leaves too much free time, too much space for thinking, and thinking is the worst enemy he has. The truth is that he doesn't miss the blood, of the mud, or the thrill. He misses the chaos, the way each day meshes into the next, the inability to stop and think. He wants to stop thinking, more than anything else. This is his peace: war.

Another lie he tells himself is that he's alone, but that's more wishful thinking than anything else. It would be easier, wouldn't it? To have no one, no expectations to live up to. But there's always someone, and for all that Bucky's tried, she doesn't seem intentioned to leave him alone anytime soon.

"James, it's me!" Natasha calls as she knocks on the front door of his apartment. "I know you're inside."

"What do you want?" Bucky asks, opening the door.

"It's been weeks since we spoke, you asshole."

"Well, as you can see I'm perfectly alright, so..."

" _James_ ," she warns.

Bucky doesn't remember much about the Red Room, and he's thankful for that. He doesn't know exactly how much Natasha remembers, and he doesn't dare to ask. But what he does remember, and what he hopes she remembers, is how they used to talk in the dead of night, when everyone else was asleep and it was like nothing else existed. Her voice was the only thing keeping him sane, the only thing he could call home. He's never told her that. He hopes she knows, though. But that's not the point. The point is that he knows that voice, and, right now, he knows it wouldn't be wise not to listen to her.

"How are you?" she asks after he lets her in.

"Peachy," he tells her. "How's Barton?"

"Don't change the subject."

"What's the subject, exactly?"

"You."

"Okay, then. Tell me about _you_."

"Well, _I_ have had a really long day, and can't wait to tell you all about it. _You_ , I hope, will return the favour," she explains, showing him her brightest smile. Then, she picks up the phone. "How does pizza sound?"

"I want Chinese."

"I want answers."

"Why?" Bushy asks, and regrets doing so as soon as he hears his own voice.

He almost expects her to tell him, "Because I managed to get over it, over all of it, and you're still fucked up in the head and I want to know why."

"Because I care about you, you idiot," she says, instead, and he almost believes her.

"Pizza will do, then," he concedes.

Sometimes, he dreams of Natasha — snow-white flesh, red lips, hair in flames, and sharp, sharp teeth. She lies lifeless on the sand, or at the heart of the forest. Bucky looks over her, knife still tight in his hands, and her blood all over his clothes.

He wonders if he could really do it, if he could kill her. He trained her, sure, but she's good. Very good. It would be a nice fight. He would have to hide her body, then, somewhere no one would find it. Not that there are a lot of people who care about her, beside Barton, but better be safe than sorry. Maybe he should kill him too, just to be sure, and then burn their bodies together.

"I dream of you, too," she says after he tells her all this. "Of you and Clint, of hurting you."

"And what do you do?"

"They're just dreams."

Just dreams. He tries to remember that the next time he falls asleep. He repeats those two words as the world materialises around him. There's blood. Lots of blood, and the smell of it is thick in the air. Natasha is there, like always. And she's dead, like always.

"What happened?" a man asks. It's the painter, the one Bucky saw the other night.

"It's nothing," Bucky says. "It's just— it's just a dream."

"Who's that?" he asks, pointing at the maimed body at his feet.

"Believe it or not, she's my best friend," he says. "This is how we show each other affection, I guess."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm tired," Bucky says. He's been wanting to say that for a while, now. "I'm really tired."

The man sits next to him, and his hand hovers on Bucky's shoulder for a while. Eventually, he puts it down.

"You're a painter, right?" Bucky asks. "Paint for me."

The man nods, and the whole landscape vanishes, and with it Natasha and the blood. He lets out a laugh, like he's surprised it worked, and it makes Bucky's heart laugh. Then, his expression changes, like he's suddenly become serious, like the cogs inside his skull have started moving.

The man closes his eyes, and from thin air appear green hills, and, in the distance, a volcano. Then, he moves his hand, and it's like an invisible brush moves across a canvas, leaving a streak of black behind. Bucky tries to imagine the tongues of liquid fire crawling down from the volcano, ever so slowly, boiling as they burned their way through the ground. He wonders how much time it took for them to stop, for the red to darken and for the lava to harden.

Changing colour, he adds the smallest amount of grey there where the sunlight makes the crystals trapped in rock glisten. Then, fountains of green and pink and purple sprout from the charred earth, like nature's fingers stretching to take back what was once hers. He paints the shadow of the great oak that somehow survived the fire, the yellow blooms of the broom, and the spiky, round pads of the _nopal_ , crowning them with bright red flowers.

The sky above is cloudless, and the air hot and rich with the bittersweet smell of oranges and lemons. It clearly comes from a memory, and Bucky suspects it is a rather good one.

"It's beautiful."

"I'm not done, yet," the man says, and the sky changes from blue to red and orange and violet.

"Is it a sunset or a dawn?" Bucky asks.

"Depends," the man answers. "What do you think it is?"

"What's the answer that makes me look optimistic?"

"I don't know. It depends."

 

* * *

 

_It was a cold night of winter, when the Prince's soul was carried away by the wind, his life blown out like a candle's fire. His body — cold bones and a still heart — was sealed in a tomb on the beach, and the Soldier's tears joined the salt of the sea._

 

* * *

 

"How have you been, man?" Sam asks as soon as his face pops up on the screen.

"Good," Steve answers, and then, because he wants to at least make an effort not to lie, he corrects himself, "Better."

"That's good to hear," Sam says, his voice fragmented here and there as the image on the screen lags. "You've been painting?"

"Yes," he answers. That's not technically a lie. "What about you? How are things in D.C.?"

"All good," Sam says. "We've all been missing you, though. Even Tony, I think."

"I don't believe that for one second."

"Are you calling me a liar, Rogers?"

"No," Steve says, raising both hands in the air. "Just a bullshitter."

"Ouch. That hurts, man."

They both laugh.

"I've been having some weird dream, lately," he says a few seconds later.

"Nightmares?"

"Not nightmares, exactly. Just weird."

"Weird how?"

"Do you—" he starts, and then realised that the question is going to end up sounding something like "Do you think it's possible to share your dreams with someone else?" so he settles for, "Don't worry, they're just dreams."

Later, he lies in his bed. It's still day in D.C., but it has to be night wherever the man from his dream lives, or they would never be asleep at the same time. Or maybe he's just going insane. That would explain a lot, actually. He wonders what Peggy would say about this...

There used to be a diner not far from where Steve grew up. It was decorated like it came straight out of the 50s, with black-and-white square tiles and improbable neon signs, despite having opened well after that time. He and Peggy had their crappy first date there. He remembers the smell of that place, pancakes and fresh coffee, and that's how he knows he's dreaming, right now. Not even his brain could recreate that heavenly smell, even if it managed to build the rest of the place perfectly.

"Where are we?" someone asks, and Steve has no doubt about who that is. He walks to one of the booths to find the long haired man. He looks better than last time, but there are still dark circles around his steel blue eyes.

"Just a happy memory," he answers, sitting in front of him. "I'm Steve, by the way."

"Bucky," the man answers.

"How are you here, Bucky?"

"I'm dreaming."

"It's my dream," Steve points out.

"Well, I'm dreaming it too."

"How's that possible?"

"I have no idea."

Silence.

"Where are you from?" Steve asks.

"I was born in Romania," Bucky says. "But I've been living in Brooklyn since I was ten."

"No way! I was born in Brooklyn!"

"Where do you live now?"

"D.C., technically, but I've been travelling around a lot lately," he says. And then, because it takes him that much to process the information, he adds, "Wait, when do you sleep?"

"When I'm so tired I pass out, usually."

"Been there, done that."

"How did you get over it?"

"Who said I did?"

"Wow, that's depressing."

"I mean, look at us: two grown men sitting in a diner that exists only in their heads."

"Sounds like my kind of date."

"You go to a lot of those?"

"Are you asking me?"

"Yes."

"Yes," Bucky says, smiling. "I'll see you tomorrow night, Steve."

Silence again.

"How do I know you're real?" Steve asks before the other man leaves. "How do I know that I didn't make you up? How do I know that you aren't my imaginary friend, or something?"

"Aren't you a little too old to have one of those?"

"I never had one," Steve says. "Maybe you are just late."

"Not too late, I hope."

"It's never too late to have an imaginary friend."

"I'm not imaginary, though."

"Prove it," Steve tells him. "Prove to me that you're real."

Bucky gets up and reaches for Steve over the table. Steve braces himself for the contact, anticipating the way the warmth of the other man's lips will feel on his own. He closes his eyes. If this were one of those rom-coms Sam loves, this would be when they wake up. But they don't. Their lips touch, and the entire history of them explodes on the back of their eyelids.

 

* * *

 

_But the Soldier's love was strong, just as strong as the Prince's. Stronger than time, or space, or death itself. And every day, as the sun set, and its light coloured the sky violet, the Veil between worlds thinned, just for the two of them. They lied there, side by side in the cold sepulchre, while the waves crashed onto the rocks again and again._

 

* * *

 

Nobody really understands how memories work. They are like relics buried deep under the ice, ready to be exhumed at the mention of a word, or because you smell a particular smell, or because of a colour, a sensation. Oranges and lemons bring your brain to Sicily, and the smell of salt to a life you've never lived; Natasha asks a question, and days Bucky thought he'd forgotten come rushing into his mind.

"What do you think happened to the others?"

That's all it takes. Bucky's eyes are filled with red, and he thinks of them, of the others: Yelena, Nadia, Ava, Ninotchka, Ying. Each name is a spark, bringing other images to his mind, other noises, other smells.

"They're all dead," Bucky answers. "I hope they are, at least."

"They might have escaped."

"They didn't escape."

"We did."

"They weren't as good as us."

"No," Natasha says. "They weren't."

They are both thinking the same thing, both remembering the same unburied memory, the same glorious night: an explosion, a diversion, the corridor they ran through, the light at the end of the tunnel, and then freedom — or the illusion of freedom. Can you ever be really free, if you drag the chains with you as you escape?

"Why do you think they never came looking for us?" Bucky asks.

"I don't care," Natasha says.

That's quite right, Bucky thinks. Sometimes it's more important that a thing is happening, rather than the reason why it's happening. Sometimes, all you can do is surrender, let the current carry you, and see where it takes you.

That's what Bucky does after he kisses Steve: he lets the memories carry him — if "memories" is the right word: they feel more like dreams, except not. They feel like reality, but not _his_ reality. But they are _his_ , in the sense that they couldn't belong to anyone else but him. Running backwards in time, just like the clock at the heart of the crooked castle by the sea, Bucky travels through the ages, through the worlds, back to the start.

There's a mirror, but the man Bucky sees reflected is not himself. He's merely wearing his face.

"You've seen it, now," Not-Bucky says. "You know the story, you know how it ends. You know why you've met him. You know why you love him."

"I don't love him," Bucky says. "I barely know him."

"You loved him. Once upon a time, and he loved you. You will again."

"Why? Because you say so?"

"Because you've destroyed the barriers of time and space to meet," Not-Bucky says. "Because you've done it a thousand times already, and because you'll do it a thousand times more."

"But I don't remember any of this," Bucky says. "I don't want— I'm not sure I want to remember."

"You don't need to remember. You already _know_ , don't you?"

 

* * *

 

_Every night they promised — to never let go, to hold onto each other in the darkness, to find each other, always. They spoke in whispers, even if they knew no one else could hear them, but their blood screamed, and their lips ached for the other's. At dawn, they promised once more. One day, the Soldier followed the Prince to the other side of the Veil. They kissed, and promised one last time they'd see each other at the violet hour._

 

* * *

 

Prince and soldier, slave and nobleman, warriors on different sides of a war, pirates, priests, thieves: hundreds of lives laid out before his eyes, like movies being played all at the same time. How many times had they met? How many times had they loved each other? How many times had they lost each other?

"You know you're allowed to be happy, right?" Peggy tells him. He wonders if she really sounded like this, or if he forgot her voice and this is just something his brain made up to replace it.

"Of course I know," Steve answered. "How do you think _you_ know?"

Peggy laughs. "Why don't you listen to yourself, then?"

"Just because I think something, it doesn't mean I'm right."

"Well, that's a first."

"You know, for a figment of my imagination, you're a real pain in the ass."

"And what does that say about you?" she asks, without expecting an answer.

"I _was_ happy," Steve says, eventually. "I was happy with you."

"And you will be happy again, Steve."

"What do you want me to do, forget you?"

"I was pretty amazing, I couldn't expect you to forget me in a thousand years," Peggy says. A wind comes from nowhere, ruffling her hair. God, she's beautiful. "But you need to move on."

"Is it really moving on if we were already together God knows when and we've spent the time between then and now reincarnating?"

"You don't have the answer to that, yet," Peggy says. "So, neither do I. There's only one way to find out."

"What's that?"

"Live."

Now, as red melts into blue, making the whole world purple, Steve finds Bucky standing on the beach, and together they watch the sun half-buried into the sea.

"Is it a sunset or a dawn?" Steve asks.

"Depends," Bucky answers. "What do you think it is?"

"What's the answer that makes me look optimistic?"

"I don't know."

"Do you want to find out?"

"Yes," Bucky says. "What the hell, I think I do."

"Me too."

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed reading this fic, please consider reblogging it on [tumblr!](http://florencedrunk.tumblr.com/post/163628482507/the-violet-hour-once-upon-a-time-in-a-kingdom)
> 
> The title comes from [The Waste Land](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47311/the-waste-land-56d227a99ddeb) by T. S. Eliot. 
> 
> The story of the Prince and the Soldier is inspired by the poem [Annabel Lee](https://www.google.it/search?q=Annabelle+lee&oq=Annabelle+lee&aqs=chrome..69i57j0j46l2.3028j0j4&client=ms-android-samsung&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8) by Edgar Allan Poe.
> 
> The old book with the weird title is Plato's [Symposium](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symposium_\(Plato\)), Aristophanes' speech in particular.


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